Cooling system



NOV. 12, 1935. s M, ANDERSON Re. 19,748

COOLING SYSTEM Original Fi led Jan. 31, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 ITit/677%? Jarnueb 7n. amicvi'on' t 'suza 62am dfitiarruzy s. M. ANDERSONRe. 19,748

COOLING SYSTEM Original Filed Jan. 31, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Nov. 12,1935.

Inventor Janine! 7'22. audensou b M K? J amrzzgy Reissued Nov. 12, 1935UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE COOLING SYSTEM Samuel M. Anderson, Sharon,Mass., assignor to B. F. Sturtevant Company, Inc., Boston, Mass.

Ori

al application January 31, 1934, Serial No. Divided and this applicationJanuary 2 Claims. (CI. 62-11?) This invention relates to theconditioning of air for passenger vehicles, and relates moreparticularly to the conditioning of air circulated through railway cars.

This application is a division or my co-pendingapplication, Serial No.709,118, filed January 31, 1934.

It is now becoming well known that human comfort requires that the airwithin an enclosure should be not only circulated to provide suflicientventilation but should in winter be warmed, with moisture added tomaintain the proper relative humidity, and in summer should be cooled,and moisture extracted from it to overcome the excessive humidity whichis usually present.

While the conditioning of air for motion picture theaters, hotel, ofliceand industrial buildings has been developed to a high degree in recentyears, the air conditioning of vehicles, and particularly railway cars,has been more or less neglected, due, perhaps, to the peculiar problemsinvolved and the many dimculties present. Among the difliculties whichpresent themselves are the lack of space in a railway car, which alreadyof necessity has had to accommodate the maximum of equipment in theminimum of space, the excessive refrigeration equipment which would haveto be carried it the ordinary method of conditioning buildings werefollowed, the changing temperature conditions through which a railwaycar must pass, the cost of the equipment, and other difllculties.

According to a feature of this invention, an air conditioning system inwhich the conditioned air is distributed without ducts. is provided. Theair conditioning chamber is mounted in the center of the car, or otherspace being served, and the conditioned air is discharged towards eachend of the car from the center. The air is discharged from the chamberin two loop circuits, overhead the passenger space. The air passes downalong one side oi the car and overhead the passenger space and isreturned to the chamber down along the other side of the car andoverhead the passenger space from each of the two sides or the chamber,the chamber thus serving to supply air without ducts from a centrallocation to the two halves of the car. Outside and recirculated air isdrawn into the chamber, filtered, temperature conditioned, anddischarged. In summer, the air is cooled and dehumidifled, and, inwinter, the air is heated and humidified.

According to another feature of the invention, the compartment issupplied with cold water from me ice cooling system and pie-coolingcoils are provided in the path of mixed outside and recirculated air,the warmest ice water being fed through the pro-cooling coils whichextract all of the heat possible from the air being conditioned.

An object or the invention is to provide precooling coils in an icecooling system in the path oi. the mixed recirculated and outside air tobe conditioned.

Other objects or the invention will be apparent In from the followingdescription taken with the drawings.

The invention will now be described with ref-- erence to the drawings,of which:

Fig. 1 is a side view of a railway car equipped 1! according to thepresent invention;

Fig. 2 is a plan view, with top removed, of the car and apparatus ofFig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a view looking into the car 01' Figs. 1 and 2 from one end,with end removed Fig. 4 is a diagrammatic view showing an ice coolingsystem for cooling the air;

Fig. 5 is a sectional plan view showing the apparatus in an airconditioning chamber or this invention, and

Fig. 6 is a side sectional view of the compartment shown by Fig. 5.

The air conditioning compartment shown by Fig. 6 comprises an insulatingcasing III which extends completely around the sides 01' thecompartment. The compartment contains the extended surface main coolingcoils ll, theprecooling coils l2, the steam heating coils l3, the steamhumidifiers II. the tans l5, which are driven by motor Ii through theintermediary of the belt ll, the outside air inlets III, the filters I!mounted within the inlets I! on the inside of the compartment, therecirculated air inlets 20, and the discharge outlets 2|.

The cooling compartment is thus seen to have 40 two recirculated airinlets and two discharge outlets. The compartment is divided into twounits by the partition 22 so that the air drawn in by one of the fans l5enters through one of the outside air inlets lfl, one of therecirculated air 45 inlets ill, passes first over one of the pre-coolingcoils l2, then over half of the cooling coils H, then over the steamcoil l3, and out one o! the discharge outlets 2 I. It is seen that twocomplete units, each serving half or the car with condiso tioned air,are provided in a single compact and eiiicient compartment requiring aminimum of apparauts due to the fact that much 01' the apparatus iscommon to the two units.

Thealrdischarged,asshownbyFigs. 1and2, 5

overhead the passenger space and down along one side of the car, and isreturned overhead the passenger space and down along the other side ofthe car. It has been found that this arrangement is particularlysuitable for the supply of cold and dehumidifled air in hot weather. Inorder to dehumidify the air sumciently, it is usually necessary to coolit to a very low dew point, at which the temperature of the cold air istoo low for comfort. But, with the present arrangement, this highlycooled air does not enter directly the area occupied by passengers. Airis circulated completely above the passenger space, and. by the action01' gravity, the cold air gradually diil'uses down from the level atwhich it is discharged from the cooling compartment, and, beforeentering the area occupied by passengers, contacts intimately with thewarm air above the passenger space and so has suiiicient superheat addedto it by the time the conditioned air reaches the passengers it has atemperature which is not too cold for comfort.

An ice cooling system such as that illustrated by Fig. 4 may be used forcooling the car. In this case, ice water is circulated through thecooling coils i I by the pump 250, the returned water being sprayedthrough the spray nozzles 28 on the ice surface so as to remove, by themelting of the ice, the heat units in the water. In order to prevent theexcess water caused by the melting of the ice from being discharged tothe tracks at too low a temperature, a portion. of the relatively warmwater leaving the cooling coils II is passed at the junction point 28(Fig. 5) through the two pre-cooling coils l2, one of which is mountedin each of the two air conditioning units included within the coolingcompartment "I. The amount of water passing through the precooling coilsi2 is preferably equal to that which would ordinarily be excess water,caused by the melting of the ice, and ordinarily drained to the tracks.This water serves to additionally cool the air and then is dischargedfrom the cooling coiis i2, through the pipe "a, to the compartment 21,from which it is drained to the tracks.

It has been the practice in the past to mount pre-eooling coils, such ascoils II, in the outside air inlets. The advantages of mounting coils inthe path of the mixed outside and recirculated air are that less poweris required to move the air over the coils to obtain the same heattransfer. Usually the larger part of the conditioned air is recirculatedair, while a minor portion is outside air. To obtain sumcient heattransfer from a pre-ccoler used to cool the small volume of outside airrequires more surface in a smaller area with higher resistance thanwhere the pre-cooler is mounted in the path of the mixed air, where, dueto the larger volume, less surface is required. Also, from the designengineering standpoint, it is preferable that all of the heat exchangesurfaces be arranged within the main cooling compartment where morespace is available.

Whereas the invention has been described in In connection with theconditioning of air supplied to passengers within a railway car, itshould be understood that the invention is also applicable to any otherenclosure to which it is desired to supply conditioned air.

Whereas one embodiment of the invention has been described for thepurpose of illustration, it should be understood that the invention isnot limited to the details described, since many modiflcations may bemade by those skilled in the art a without departing from the spirit ofthe invention.

What is claimed is:

1. Air conditioning apparatus for a passenger vehicle, comprising aconditioning compartment located in the roof zone of the vehicle, meansfor a drawing in fresh and recirculated air and passing it through saidcompartment, air cooling means in said compartment, an ice chamber forproviding cold water through the melting or ice. means for circulatingthe cold water to said air a cooling means and returning a portion ofsame to said chamber, a Dre-cooling coil mounted in said compartment inthe path of the air to be cooled, and means for continuously passing theremaining portion of the water leaving said air cooling means throughsaid pre-cooling coil and then discharging it from said vehicle.

2. Air conditioning apparatus for a passenger vehicle, comprising aconditioning compartment located substantially in the center of thevehicle and in the root zone thereof, completely above 40 the usefulpassenger space, a cooling coil in said compartment, means ior drawingin fresh and recirculated air and passing it over said coil, an icechamber for cooling water through the melting of ice, means forcirculating the cold water through said cell and for returning a portionof same to said chamber, a pre-cooling coil, and means for continuouslypassing the other portion of the water leaving said cooling coil andthen discharging it from said vehicle through said precooling coil.

SAMUEL M. ANDERSON.

DISCLAM ER Re. No 19,748.-Samuel 1V. Anderson, Sharon, Mass. COOLINGSYSTEM. Patent dated November 12, 1935. Disclaimer filed August 5, 1936,by the assignee, B. F. St'urteuant Company, Inc.

Hereby enters this disclaimer to the combination as set forth in claim 1of said patent, except wherein the precooling coil is mounted in thepath of the recirculated and fresh air passing through the conditioningcompartment.

[Ofiicial Gazette August 25, 1936]

